With many museums and art galleries closing their doors due to the coronavirus, many art lovers turned to Google and the internet generally to ascertain their favorite artists.

With that in mind, a team of researchers at Ken Bromley Art Supplies wanted to seek out which artists were the most frequently searched for artists in 2020 and therefore who was the most popular in each country throughout the pandemic.

The designers then created seven maps, a world map and one for every continent, to present the results of their research.

Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci is the most Googled overall, winning in 82 countries around the world including Greenland, India, Norway, South Africa, and UAE. Da Vinci is widely considered among the best painters of all time and winning by this measurement only reinforces this status. Mona Lisa is one of his most famous pieces and can also be considered as the most famous portrait ever made. The Last Supper is the most reproduced religious painting of all time and his Vitruvian Man drawing is additionally considered a cultural icon. In 2017, his Salvator Mundi painting was sold at auction for $450.3 million, setting a record for the most expensive painting ever sold at public auction.

Frida Kahlo
Women are underrepresented in the winners list, with just two inclusions out of the 13 “winners”. Frida Kahlo won in 29 countries in total including in countries such as the US, Mexico and Brazil. Frida Kahlo’s paintings can't be fully understood or appreciated without insight into her as a person and where she was from. In some ways Frida Kahlo’s painting about politics and identity were before her time and are extremely relevant and revered today which helps understand why so many people Google her.

The other female artist was 17th century painter Artemisia Gentileschi, coming in forth place and winning in 23 countries including Australia, China, Germany and Italy. It has been thought that some of her popularity in 2020 was due to a Google Doodle which was created to celebrate what would have been her 427th birthday in June.

Vincent van Gogh came in third place winning in 24 countries including Algeria, Canada, Egypt and Israel. Van Gogh’s famous Starry Night oil painting is housed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

In fifth place, Picasso. Picasso contributed significantly to variety of artistic movements, notably Cubism, Surrealism, Neoclassicism, and Expressionism. Alongside fellow artist Braque, Picasso is best known for pioneering Cubism in an effort to reconcile three-dimensional space with the two-dimensional plane.

To see the full list of the winning artist in each country visit the Ken Bromley Art Supplies blog.